Cracked my thrust plate while pulling the cam gear so must replace it. Does anyone have the Ford part # for the thrust plate and the cam spacer [washer]? They're nowhere to be found in my Chilton's manual and no parts stores I've checked even have it listed.
Someone recently mentioned being able to get the camshaft thrust plate for $8. I just called my local Ford dealer and they quoted me $27 for the plate and $66 for the spacer washer [YIKES!]. I can live with re-using the spacer but have to get a new thrust plate, so if anyone knows of a cheap source please let me know.
ps... totally trashed my gear puller trying to remove the cam gear... sucker didn't want to budge! Threads on the puller stripped after moving the gear ~ 1mm. Wound up rigging a hydraulic pipe bender to work as a press and it slid right out.
The website looks like it is referring to the thrust plate BOLTS and not the plate. The plate is a dealer item, I know I bought one. Reuse the spacer and go to Ford for the plate. It is not an item a parts store would stock,there would be little or no call for one.
Yup... Just ordered it from headbolts.com. Under $10 including Priority Mail shipping... can't beat that. They offer thrust plates for several different engines, imagine they're making them in-house. They're just a small flat metal plate... very easy/ cheap to make if you have a CNC machine or flowjet.
Will post back when it arrives and let you know how it looks. Expecting steel instead of the brittle factory cast iron. FWIW after 77k miles and questionable oil changes for the first half of the engine's life, the thrust plate showed zero wear. The factory cam is a different story... bearing surfaces were fine but the lobes were showing wear with some obvious flat spots. Rear 3 pair looked better than the front 3. The fuel pump lobe was VERY badly worn/ grooved.
Thrust plate came in the mail today... speedy delivery from headbolts.com. It's a perfect match for the old factory part, appears to be cast iron. Only "gripe" is that the inside hole where the thrust washer rides isn't machined smooth all the way around, so I'll have to do a bit of careful sanding by hand. Still... for what I paid there's no complaints.
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So I guess it's not a dealer only item. 
